Strength and power
It was a source of perpetual confusion that a family as civilian as theirs could produce not one but two children so obviously unsuited to peaceful civilian life. Lee was… enthusiastic about violence to say the least, and as for Kyouya, well no-one was sure what went on in that child’s head. They didn’t know where he got the tonfas, or learned to use them, but after the third time he’d beaten up a drunk chuunin for “disturbing the peace”, the ninja academy had really been the only place they could send him.
Kyouya had quite liked the ninja academy, there was fighting, and weapons training, and once he’d beaten up a few of his classmates no-one dared disturb his naps. It was if nothing else, a good place to establish his authority. His classmates were… irritating though, annoying in ways he didn’t quite have words for, and he knew there should be a word for them. Tetsuya said not to worry about it, that it would come to him eventually. Kyouya had responded with a snarl and a snake fast strike of his tonfa.
Hibari Kyouya was utterly convinced there was a word for his fellow students. It itched at the back of his mind and he just couldn’t, quite, remember. It was infuriating, it made him want to fight, to attack, to do… something he couldn’t remember what. There was something he’d forgotten, something important and whenever he tried to pin it down it escaped him.
It was worse around his cousin. There was something disturbingly, disconcertingly familiar about his cousin, beyond just the familiarity of having grown up together. Cousin Lee reminded him of someone else, someone who was also deeply irritating and yet somehow impressive at the same time. He didn’t like it. He responded as he usually responded to things he didn’t like. With non-civilian levels of violence.
Both sets of parents had been rather bemused by the first time little Kyouya, age three, and little Lee age five had managed to beat each other to a pulp. To the point where neither of them was capable of moving. Bemused and rather worried, but after the incident had repeated itself a few times and they’d failed to give each other any truly serious injuries they adapted, and just tried to ensure the cousins meetings didn’t occur around any breakable items. Keeping them separated, wasn’t worth the violent temper tantrums from Kyouya for keeping him away from a fight, or the devastated looks of betrayal from Lee for keeping him away from his adorably youthful cousin. Cousin Lee might be annoying, and familiar in ways that itched at the back of his head, but he was also the only decent challenge available from his pathetically weak family. There was no way he was going to let them keep him separated from Lee.
He’d turned up for his first day at ninja academy, and met someone who was even more uncomfortably familiar than Cousin Lee. In fact if it weren’t absolutely absurd he would say that Sasagawa Ryouhei was the person that Lee reminded him of. Which was ridiculous because he’d never met the boy before in his life. It didn’t help that Ryouhei had quickly latched on to him as though they were related. The more time he spent in Ryouhei’s general vicinity the more uncanny the resemblance to his cousin became, not physically, but in terms of personality and fighting style. Hibari was torn between wanting to ensure the two never met, for the sake of peace in Konoha, and deliberately organising a three way spar on the academy training grounds. Kusakabe could make sure they weren’t disturbed. He was useful that way, even if his understanding of Kyouya’s moods did border on the supernatural.
Besides, it was the ninja academy, it wasn’t like fighting was discouraged. In the end he’d decided to introduce them. The ensuing spar had been more than worth the disruption and had ended with all three of them collapsed in exhaustion, while Ryouhei muttered something about extreme battles, and Lee had groaned about youthful training. It was most satisfying. Attending the academy had definitely been one of his better decisions.
And then there was Sawada Tsunayoshi. Something about Sawada Tsunayoshi made the itching at the back of his brain intensify to almost unbearable levels and yet he found he couldn’t just ignore or avoid him. Something about Sawada just kept drawing him back. Maybe it was the way Sawada looked at him, as though he knew Kyouya better than he knew himself, or maybe it was a different manifestation of the effect Sawada had on all their classmates. He was… compelling, in ways that no-one seemed quite able to ignore.
He shouldn’t have been so interesting. He was almost suspiciously average in his combat abilities, and classwork, he wasn’t a prankster, or a troublemaker, it was as though he was going out of his way to be unremarkable. But there was something, a spark of predator in him that Kyouya couldn’t help but notice. Of course it didn’t help that he had Nara Hayato following him around. Nara Hayato was a troublemaker, as well as a genius, and a well above average fighter, the fact that he deferred to Tsuna was, well it undermined the innocent act a bit. And then Yamamoto Takeshi transferred in, and he might have been more subtle than Nara but he still clearly followed Tsunayoshi’s lead, and no-one who’d seen him with a sword in hand would ever call him average.
The years passed and more and as more and more students were drawn ever closer into Tsunayoshi’s orbit the itching familiarity at the back of Kyouya’s mind became more and more unbearable. It left him… irritable, even his cousin had started to be wary of his moods. It didn’t help that he was increasingly sure that Tsuna and his friends knew exactly what the problem was.
In their final year at the academy the village was invaded. It was one of the best days of Kyouya’s life. Finally he had an excuse to drown his irritation and frustration in the blood of the petty annoyances that surrounded him. When the alarms sounded he’d ignored the academy instructors trying to urge the students towards the shelters and struck out in search of victims. Tsuna had followed him by the trail of battered sound nin he left behind him.
It was at he was smashing his tonfa into the jaw of an a enemy chuunin that a word had come to him. “Herbivore.” He spat, before moving on to his next target. Herbivore, there was something so right about the word, they were herbivores. Weak, crowding herbivores, he wanted to… bite them to death. He felt a warmth at his back that a deeply buried part of him identified as Sky flames, and something slotted into place like it had always been there. He remembered now, he was a carnivore, and he had a pack, and Sawada Tsunayoshi was the heart of it. Memories of cloud flames, and battle, and a small fluffy beacon of orange fire, always stronger than he seemed to be.
He turned to look Tsuna in the eyes and he knew. His Sky already remembered.
“Herbivore.” He said clearly, and with menace, “You didn’t tell me we’d lived before.” The squeak his Sky let out at his tone was far more satisfying than he’d ever admit. It was good to know some things didn’t change. He smiled with all his teeth, “I’ll bite you to death.”